摘要：This paper presents the author's view of the current trend in the world of software engineering. Software engineering has already taken the responsibility of providing the necessary tools for organizing, structuring, and making efficient use of the huge volume of information currently floating around. The responsibility of software engineering will increase dramatically by the exponential increases expected in the volume of information. The volume of information, in every branch of science and technology, is getting so high that without a software engineering tool cannot be of any use. This is an extreme power, and responsibility, for software engineering.The paper provides an analysis of the increasing power and responsibilities associated with software engineeringas an engineering discipline, points out the catastrophic results of failures, as well as significance of accuracy and correctness in this discipline, and concludes that software engineering cannot afford to go wrong. The paper then investigates the significance of mathematical foundations and formal approaches to software engineering, specially in the area of software requirements specification. Finally, the paper recommends using a visual formalism, designed based on a representationistic approach,as a sound and simple foundation, for a sound and successful software engineering practice. An example of such a formalism concludes the paper.
